True Calories in and True Calories out is really a function of what you are eating. not the amount you are eating.

Calories in:

What does your body actually do with the calories you put into your mouth?

If I were to eat pure sugar all day my body would digest it all and through a long chain of reactions convert it to energy and fat stored in my body. If I were to eat fat and protein all day by body would digest some of it for energy and pass on much of it.

So regardless of the EXACT amount of calories you put into your mouth there is some variation as to how much your body actually takes out of your digestive system.

Calories out: (ignoring exercise).

All humans burn some amount of calories just living. If I am using carbs as my predominant fuel source then my body will burn 1000 calories over the course of a day just by living, regardless of the amount of carbs I take in. If I am using fat and protein as my primary fuel source my body will burn 2000 calories over the course of a day just by living.

If you I don't get enough fat/protein my body thinks it is starving and therefore lowers my metabolic rate and stores calories as fat. If I am getting enough or extra fat/protein my body is not worried about starvation and therefore burns at a higher metabolic rate and is not concerned with storing calories as fat.

True Calories in and True Calories out is really a function of what you are eating. not the amount you are eating.

Calories in:

What does your body actually do with the calories you put into your mouth?

If I were to eat pure sugar all day my body would digest it all and through a long chain of reactions convert it to energy and fat stored in my body. If I were to eat fat and protein all day by body would digest some of it for energy and pass on much of it.

So regardless of the EXACT amount of calories you put into your mouth there is some variation as to how much your body actually takes out of your digestive system.

Calories out: (ignoring exercise).

All humans burn some amount of calories just living. If I am using carbs as my predominant fuel source then my body will burn 1000 calories over the course of a day just by living, regardless of the amount of carbs I take in. If I am using fat and protein as my primary fuel source my body will burn 2000 calories over the course of a day just by living.

If you I don't get enough fat/protein my body thinks it is starving and therefore lowers my metabolic rate and stores calories as fat. If I am getting enough or extra fat/protein my body is not worried about starvation and therefore burns at a higher metabolic rate and is not concerned with storing calories as fat.

I would spend 5 days cutting very hard. I would then spend 2 days eating insane amounts of food. On the 5 days of cutting, I would eat very high protein but almost no fat or carbohydrate - almost total protein. I would keep activity level low while doing some high repetition but light weight work. This would coax the weight loss to come almost entirely from fat while preserving muscle. Then, while I would eat massive amounts of food, I would do my hypertrophy. Heavy, low repetition, total body, complex stuff. But the trick is you can only do this with carbohydrate. The 5 days of restriction and high repetition weight work would leave you totally glycogen depleted, and it would take about 1,000-1,500g of carbohydrate for me to fill up. This means over the 48 hours I could eat about 1,350g of carbohydrate and 500g of protein - about 7400 calories - with no fear of fat gain. All the protein would be used for muscle growth and all the carbohydrate would be used to replete glycogen. So I would put on almost entirely lean muscle mass during the 2 day refeed and lose almost entirely fat during the 5 day cut. It was very well-designed and very complex, but doing so allowed me to put on muscle and lose body fat at the exact same time. However, because I spent the time at a net caloric deficit, overall I lost a lot of weight. It just so happens to be that a 10 lb weight loss was in reality more like 5 lbs of water weight lost, 7 lbs of fat lost and 2 lbs of muscle gained (those numbers are made up but it's just an example).

That was a fun experiment. Since then, I've gained about 15 lbs. However, I've added 40 lbs to my benchpress reps and 60 lbs to my deadlift reps. I can also sprint faster and I'm up to 17 chin-ups in a row. It was at the expense of some fat gain, but it was well worth it IMO.

Not two different things...either it is calories in vs calories out or it is not. Cycling is playing the protein/fat/carb game which if it was calories in vs calories out would not make a difference. As I said in my original post you can lose weight in a calorie deficit (twinkie diet), and what you eat is very important BUT as you have pointed out there is much, much more going on than just calories in vs out.

Last edited by Dirlot; 08-08-2012 at 11:04 PM.

Eating primal is not a diet, it is a way of life.
PS
Don't forget to play!

Not two different things...either it is calories in vs calories out or it is not. Cycling is playing the protein/fat/carb game which if it was calories in vs calories out would not make a difference. As I said in my original post you can lose weight in a calorie deficit (twinkie diet), and what you eat is very important BUT as you have pointed out there is much, much more going on than just calories in vs out.

Did you actually read the post or did you skip the entire middle? I was on a 3,000 calorie a week caloric deficit. That's why I lost weight. There was nothing more going on. I took in a 5,000 calorie deficit over 5 days and lost fat, then would go on a 2,000 calorie caloric surplus while performing hypertrophy to put on muscle. The net result was a 3,000 calorie deficit each week over 6 weeks, resulting in a significant loss of weight.

Don't put your trust in anyone on this forum, including me. You are the key to your own success.

Has anyone on this forum read the Prinal Blueprint? <--- Did anyone else take this as an insult?

ChocoTaco, were you eating a SAD diet at the time of this caloric restriction?

Not. All. Calories. Are. The. Same.

Just like gasoline or electricity or wind or sunlight. Yes, they are all "energy," but you have to match your fuel to your plant, or the plant will do nothing. A solar panel cannot make electricity from wind. A wind turbine cannot make electricity from burning hydrogran. A coal burning plant doesn't make electricity from sunlight. Your food-burning body cannot run on sunlight or nuclear fuel. etc.

What if you poured gasoline onto the batteries in the electric car? Will it run? Of coruse not. The batteries don't know how to use gasoline, so the gas just sits there. The car wants electricity, and no matter how much gas you pour in, the car won't run without electricity.* The car will NEVER see the accumulating cans of gasoline. Ok, so what if you stop putting cans of gas into the electric car. Will the car use up the cans of gas that are already there? OF COURSE NOT.

FIRST: Match your stockpile of fuel to your power plant. <--- or more accurately, convert your power plant to the fuel you've stockpiled.

THEN: Restrict the amount of new (matched) fuel you take in. Then your power plant can use up the stockpile.

IDEAL: For you Ind. Eng. folks out there: You'll have a six-pack when you achieve just-in-time fuel delivery so you don't have to store inventory.

So Dirlot, you are wrong. It is NOT "one thing or the other."
Is it calorie restriction?
Answer: Yes, BUT. Only if you match your fuel.

(Now I realize that the body is somewhat more complex than the car example because humans can sort of burn both fat and sugar.** This analogy is the extreme version, and would apply best to someone who ditched a bread-heavy SAD cold-turkey and converted to eating only fats butter and coconut oil. We have an example of that: the Bulletproof Executive, who (says he) lived in Asia for two years on Bulletproof butter coffee alone. And Dirlot, we had this same discussion in the Bulletproof Coffee thread.)

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*In fact this is precisely what Taubes described with that special species of rat: researchers fed the rats until they were obese and then cut off all food until the rats starved to death. The rats died still fat. They rats were so adapted to burning sugar that they ate their own muscles before burning that fat. This is the example I think of when I see an obese low-income person who can't afford food. The standard CW ridicule is that "gee they don't look like they're starving to me." Yes, they are starving, and primals know why. Luckily humans are a little more adaptable. On pure starvation (fasting), a human would adapt to fat-burner. But what about the vegetarians who lose muscle and have a soft middle? They show that we aren't that far off from those rats.

**for you sticklers, the equivalent would be to convert from coal to natural gas. Similar fuel, but different enough that you need some conversion for safety and efficiency.

5'0" female, 44 years old. Started Primal October 31, 2011, at a skinny fat 111.5 lbs. Low weight: 99.5 lb on a fast. Gained back to 111 on sugar cheat. Currently fighting off sugar/candy cravings with bulletproof cocoa and a little rice.

I (try to) follow by-the-book primal as advocated by Mark Sisson, except for whey powder and a bit of cream. I advocate a two-month strict adjustment for newbies. But everybody is different and should tweak Primal to their own needs.

Help, I'm eating low carb, high fat and keeping the weight off without counting calories (for the first time in my whole goddam life). I'm drinking buttered coffee and eating spoonfuls of coconut butter and plates of oxtails and pork belly but this stubborn weight loss persists. What should I do to gain it all back?

Help, I'm eating low carb, high fat and keeping the weight off without counting calories (for the first time in my whole goddam life). I'm drinking buttered coffee and eating spoonfuls of coconut butter and plates of oxtails and pork belly but this stubborn weight loss persists. What should I do to gain it all back?

Stop eating all that fat it is easily stored and will never come back out to be used as energy. See what you don't seem to understand is that you're body has made the fatal flaw of storing tens of thousands of caloric energy as fat. It was supposed to make that much energy available to you in our preferred fuel state of carbohydrate. Unfortunately you will only have about 2000 calories of carbs so to make up for your bodies stupidity be sure to eat at least 6 meals a day of primal approved carbohydrate for energy. This will come with various hormonal challenges that will increase appetite and stop lypolisis, but since you have stopped ingesting all that fat you will only gain back a bunch of water weight (as long as you meticulously track calories and ignore your hunger pangs). Hope this helps.

For me unfortunately, in order to lose weigh it's about both, CICO - creating calorie deficit and keeping the carbs low.
I just find VLC or just LC more sustainable. If I'm to go higher in carbs (over 100g) and try to cut down on calories, I'm constantly hungry and miserable. I also feel much better on low-carb in regards to overall health and well being.

I would bet one group eating 2000 calories of crap would loose weigh slower than another group eating 2000 calories of nutritional, primal food.

What would you like to bet? Before answering, please enlighten me on the logic you used to form this hypothesis?

Originally Posted by Dirlot

Not two different things...either it is calories in vs calories out or it is not. Cycling is playing the protein/fat/carb game which if it was calories in vs calories out would not make a difference. As I said in my original post you can lose weight in a calorie deficit (twinkie diet), and what you eat is very important BUT as you have pointed out there is much, much more going on than just calories in vs out.

Answer this question - if you eat 500 calories for five days followed by two days of 4000 calories, will you be at a different energy balance than someone who eats 1500 calories every day when all other variables in the energy balance equation remain the same between those individuals?

Originally Posted by oxide

Not. All. Calories. Are. The. Same.

False, by definition they are exactly the same. They are all simply a way to express the amount of energy required to raise the temp of one kg of water by one degree (Celsius). You may dispute the relevance of applying this measurement to human thermogenesis but you can't say that a calorie of refined sugar is any different than a calorie of chicken.

Help, I'm eating low carb, high fat and keeping the weight off without counting calories (for the first time in my whole goddam life). I'm drinking buttered coffee and eating spoonfuls of coconut butter and plates of oxtails and pork belly but this stubborn weight loss persists. What should I do to gain it all back?

I'm there too..

Start figuring out what carb your body can digest correctly (without all the inflammation & gut irritation) & up that intake.. You will pack on some water & bloating, but I think phase 1 of halting rapid weight loss & packing some lean tissue back on is found in the carb department.. keep those glycogen stores full, & workout for lean gains.. (compound movements, yadee yadee, etc)

I've been playing with a "KETO-type BULK".. its very tough & frankly just becoming a chore to choke down 3,000 calories of protein & fat, when you're never hungry..

I'm thinking low fiber, low sugar carbs are best for me & the GAPS crew.. no potatoes or loads of fruit.. thinking white rice could be key